


grass is never greener

by ell (amywaited)



Category: Marvel
Genre: Angst, Cute, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Its fluffy angst, M/M, Slash, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, but not really angst, give tony all the hugs, kind of?, one day ill learn how to tag??, rhodey loves tony a lot, slash fic, tonys sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 11:34:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17661806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amywaited/pseuds/ell
Summary: tony owes rhodey his life, probably





	grass is never greener

**Author's Note:**

> birthday fic for one of my best friends, [al!](https://sleepyoldchild.tumblr.com) (check out that link, itll take u to their tumblr)

Tony never used to be this tired.

He never used to breath and feel nothing, never used to smile but not really. Never used to drink himself to sleep when the tears ran dry, when no one was left to hug him and carry him to bed and he ended up slumped over in the workshop, drunk to the point of pain, and Dum-E and U would drape a ratty blanket over him in their own ideals of love. 

He never used to feel so.. Alone.

Pepper was off running his company, and Obie had him kidnapped and tortured. There wasn’t exactly anyone else left, no one but his bots and his code, and how turning on the lights in his labs felt more like home then anything else these days. Which is kind of sad, when he thinks about it, so he doesn’t think about it and he tries not to wallow.

Instead, he drowns his sorrows in whiskey and engine oil, creating more than enough half-assed projects, prototypes for things he’ll never finetune. He works best when half asleep and pissed, but Pepper would disagree. Pepper disagree about most things when it comes to Tony.

His best ideas come to him while sleep deprived, hungover, drunk, or all three at once. Usually all three at once, which blossomed into some ugly point of tension as soon as he hired Pepper and he didn’t know how to fix it.

You can’t fix human beings, Tony is slowly learning. You just break them more than when you started.

 

* * *

 

Then Rhodey comes home.

And Rhodey knows how to make things  _ good  _ and clean. Warm, overbearing at times, and suddenly Tony isn’t going to sleep drunk and waking up drunk and going to sleep drunk any more.

Until Rhodey leaves again, ‘cause he always will and he always does and Tony falls further than he ever has before. He spirals into his brain, deep and dark and into the blank void between life and death.

 

* * *

 

“Tones?”

“Mmm?”

“Tony?”

“Go ‘way.”

“Come on, wake up.”

“No.”

Someone huffs. “Tony, come on.”

“You can’t make me,” Tony slurs. His head is pounding in time with his heart.

“Yes, I can,” the someone says, and suddenly Tony is lifted into the air and pulled into a warm chest, that smells like Rhodey and feels like Rhodey and he’s suddenly a lot happier.

“Platypus?” Tony mumbles.

“That’s me,” Rhodey says. “When was the last time you slept?”

“Just now.”

Rhodey chuckles. “I asked for that, huh? How about before that?”

Tony hums, consideringly. “A while ago.”

“I should have known,” Rhodey says. “Come on. Let’s get you to bed and once you’re awake I’ll ask you some questions.”

“Questions about what?” Tony asks. He’s even more tired than before he fell asleep, and he’d really rather not. He kind of just wants to curl into Rhodey and eat a cheeseburger and maybe a milkshake and not wake up for another three and a half days. Not like Rhodey would ever let him do that, though. He might concede on the cheeseburger but Tony doesn’t want to push his luck right now.

“About what you were doing that meant I found you asleep in your own vomit,” Rhodey says. “Sleeping on a pile of half formed robots and smoking wires. Which is a massive safety violation, and I’m very angry about it.”

“Don’t be silly,” Tony mumbles. “I practice perfect lab safety.”

Rhodey snorts, sending vibrations through Tony. “Sure, you do. Sure, you do, Tones.”

“I do!” Tony says defensively. It’s kind of ruined by how sleepy he sounds, his mind still addled with exhaustion and coloured all fuzzy.

“When pigs fly,” Rhodey says, “Come on, get changed and we’ll get you into bed.”

“Mmm no.”

“Mmm yes,” Rhodey says mockingly. “I’ll do it myself if I have to. MIT sweater, flannel sweatpants, sound good?”

“Perfect,” Tony says dopily.

“That’s what I thought,” Rhodey says. “Stand up and put them on.”

Tony does so reluctantly, dragging his world weary limbs through soft materials. They bring him back to some kind of bygone time, one that he misses more than anything. The sweater still smells like Rhodey from when he stole it thirty odd years ago, and that alone sends a spark of nostalgia flip-flopping through him. 

“Good,” Rhodey says softly. The lights turn down automatically, turning warm and faint, pale enough that it makes Tony feel like he’s floating. “Come on. Go to sleep, Tones.”

Tony flops back onto his bed with a sigh, before sitting up and making grabby hands at Rhodey. “Please stay?”

Rhodey hesitates. “I have work..”

“Please?” Tony asks again. Rhodey melts, exactly like Tony knew he would.

“Fine,” Rhodey says. “But you owe me, okay?”

“Oh, stop,” Tony mutters. Rhodey’s arms snake around him. “I don’t owe you a thing.”

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday love <3 
> 
> i dont reeeaaally like this, but ive never written ironhusbands before, and ive never really written rhodey before either. hopefully my characterisation of him is adequate at best.
> 
> alas, please comment and let me know what you thoooought, and ill see you soon for some other fic! (hopefully, some zombie au and my collab fic!)
> 
> much love!


End file.
